


Finding Balance

by fractalgeometry



Series: Fidget Thinking [2]
Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Communication, Jake's fabulous self-esteem, Misunderstanding, fidget toys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:28:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24184378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fractalgeometry/pseuds/fractalgeometry
Summary: Holt is perceptive, but what exactly was going on in Jake's head after their minor altercation? No one can really know that but him (and us, the omniscient audience). Turns out, it's a lot of things.
Relationships: Ray Holt & Jake Peralta
Series: Fidget Thinking [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1729342
Comments: 4
Kudos: 88





	Finding Balance

**Author's Note:**

> I really did mean to post this last weekend, but time has been wonky and I've been busy, so it's been a while. But here, at last, is Jake's view of A New Kind Of Professionalism! You don't have to read that fic to enjoy this one, but it does add depth, since they're two perspectives of the same events.

Jake was at work early. Contrary to popular belief, this wasn’t a rare happening - when he had a case that was unsolved and bugging him. That morning, he was in possession of such a case. 

_“In possession of a case” sounds like I have a briefcase of drugs or laundered money or something,_ he thought, laughing a little to himself as he slid into his chair and whacked the keyboard to wake up his computer. As it loaded, he idly picked up his newest fidget toy - a twisty cube that fit neatly in the palm of his hand - and flicked it with his index finger. Then he flipped open the case file and lost himself in the buzz of puzzle-solving.

~

The day was long advanced when Holt came out of his office for the first time since that morning. Jake, still intent on his work, was startled when the captain’s footsteps stopped behind him and the man snapped, “Peralta!”

“Right here!” He swiveled around and looked up at his boss, smiling. “What’s up, Captain?”

Holt didn’t even give the eyebrow twitch of greeting that Jake usually got, and he automatically started running through all the possible things that could have gone wrong. Spilled something and forgot to clean it up? No, he was getting better about that. Overdue paperwork? He didn’t think so. An unpleasant case to give Jake? A _personal_ case come across their desks?

Oh, Holt was speaking. “I would like to remind you that this is a work environment,” he started, in clipped, displeased tones. Whoops. Maybe Jake _had_ spilled something. 

Holt continued. “If you choose to keep a toy on your desk in case a lost seven-year-old wanders in that is up to you. However, I ask you to refrain from playing with said toys while on the job.”

Jake’s stomach suddenly felt like there was a hole in it. He glanced at the fidget that he had been absently toying with all morning. “Oh. Yeah. Cool. Sure. Obviously. Who’d play with toys, anyway?” He dumped it unceremoniously into a drawer, laughing what felt like a very, very fake laugh. He wondered if anyone had noticed. Rather than look and see, he swept his other fidgets — a spinny cube and a plastic tangle — into the drawer and almost slammed it shut. “All good?”

Holt nodded to him, curtly, and stalked toward the elevator.

Jake inhaled a little, trying to swallow the tightness that seemed to have taken up residence in his chest. It didn’t work. He blew the air out, a little shakily, and tried again. That time was a little better. 

“You okay?” Amy asked from across the desk.

Jake’s head snapped up. “Yeah, fine, no problem. Just going to get back to work now.”

“I think he’s in a bad mood.”

“Happens to everybody!” Jake somehow managed to smile.

“It wasn’t personal.”

Why couldn’t she just stop _noticing?_ He gave a tiny nod, turning back to his computer.

Amy finally took the hint, or he guessed she did, since she didn’t say anything more. Jake grimly studied his work. All the fun seemed to have gone out of it. All the _everything_ seemed to have gone out of it. All that was left was anxiety.

Great.

~

Jake went out by himself at lunchtime, dodging Charles’s usual offer to share (which, to be fair, he rarely accepted, but he usually ate in the breakroom with his friend at least) and making his way to one of the hot dog stands outside. He ended up eating three, because he was an adult now and that meant he could eat as many hot dogs as he wanted. 

He sat on one of the concrete pillars that kept cars from driving up onto the sidewalk, contemplating. Contemplating _what_ he wasn’t exactly sure. Definitely not feelings. He was bad at that. Besides, what feelings were there to contemplate? There wasn’t a reason he was sitting alone by the side of the road eating hot dogs. There didn’t have to be a reason. He was an adult, who could do what he wanted and didn’t play with toys.

Damn it, there was the reason. Why were things like that so bad at staying buried like he wanted them to? 

Anyway, Holt was probably right. He was smart, and a good cop, and knowledgeable about this kind of thing. 

Jake tossed his napkin in a trash bin and went inside.

~

“Peralta, could I see you in my office for a moment?”

Jake jumped a mile and spun his chair around, looking halfway up at Holt before deciding he didn’t really want to see what expression was on his boss’s face this time. “Sure. I mean, yeah. Of course.” He pushed out his chair and followed Holt into the captain’s office. Holt went back around to his chair while Jake stopped and hovered across from him, waiting for whatever was next.

“I wanted to apologize for how I spoke to you earlier,” Holt said, and Jake’s brain stuttered briefly, replaying what it had just heard. That had not been what he expected.

“I was...out of sorts, and did not properly consider the consequences of my actions,” Holt continued. “It has come to my attention that I may have been hasty in requiring you to remove your...things…from your desk. They seem to be of some importance.”

“What?” Jake said, as a way to buy time. Then he huffed what he hoped was a flippant laugh. “No.” Ah, deflect, deflect, deflect. The best way to deal with situations that might otherwise require thoughts or vulnerability.

Holt looked evenly at him for several seconds longer than Jake would have liked, but luckily kept talking eventually. “Very well. Regardless, I apologize for taking my temper out on you.”

“That was temper?” Jake tried to sound incredulous. “That was nothing! I mean-” he stopped suddenly, realizing that the direction he was going was more likely to complicate matters than improve them. “Never mind.”

“As long as you retain some semblance of professionalism, you may keep whatever you wish on your desk,” Holt finished, blessedly ignoring Jake’s fumbling. 

“Oh. Cool. Cool cool cool. Yeah,” Jake said, barely registering what he was saying. 

“Dismissed.”

Jake turned and walked back out to his desk, studiously avoiding looking at anyone else. He sat, stabbing his keyboard repeatedly to wake up the computer, then stared intently at the screen, seeing none of it. He was too busy thinking.

Holt had apologized. That wasn’t unheard of. Holt was good at the adulting thing of apologizing when you were in the wrong. Problem was, Jake had just spent the whole day becoming more and more convinced that Holt _hadn’t_ been wrong. He could undo that, probably. He was good at backpedaling. 

Then there was the problem that Holt had somehow figured out that Jake’s “things” were important. That bothered Jake, probably significantly more than it should. It wasn’t like no one had ever known what his fidgets were for. Granted, in the past it had exclusively been his mom, who had bought the original ones in the first place, but maybe he shouldn’t be so surprised. Holt was a police captain. Of course he noticed patterns.

Jake glanced around. No one was looking at him, which was pretty standard for mid-afternoon on a work day. He pressed his lips together and slid the top drawer open, pulling out his tangle. It squished comfortingly when he squeezed the coils together.

Closing the drawer, Jake returned his attention to the computer and, this time, the work displayed on it.

In his left hand, the fidget absently twisted and caught in his fingers before slipping free and continuing its contortions.

# Coda:

Jake had intended to forget about the whole thing. Holt had had a bad day, Jake had gotten caught up in it, and everything had been settled for over a week. For a few days Jake had felt his alertness rise when Holt passed his desk, but even that dissipated relatively quickly. For some reason, though, he still couldn’t quite let it go. The hurt and guilt of being told off by someone he respected had been quieted by Holt’s apology. He hadn’t asked for an explanation, just owned his mistake (and Jake could see now that it _was_ a mistake) and made amends. 

Jake wanted to explain himself anyway. With a significant exertion of restraint he had waited to see whether it was just residual guilt (he was getting better at emotions, see?), but the desire remained. If Holt was going to go around noticing Jake’s idiosyncracies, Jake would prefer that he understand them. 

So, before he could change his mind again, Jake bounced out of his chair. The energy got him as far as the doorway before he reconsidered again, and now it was too late for that. 

“It helps me think,” he blurted, because standing silently in the doorway to the captain’s office would have been weird, and that sentence was the first one he thought of.

Holt looked at him calmly, like he always did when someone startled him. “What helps you think?”

Ah, well, it would appear he was doing this. Jake held up the fidget he’d brought along: the twisty cube. “When my fingers are moving, it’s like my brain settles down and focuses on what it’s doing.” Shoot, that didn’t feel like a very good explanation. “Like my side-tangents are going towards movement instead of thinking.”

Holt laid down his pen and turned fully toward Jake, clearly intent on the conversation. “And this is why you keep them on your desk?”

Jake nodded.

“A worthy choice,” Holt approved, and Jake let out the breath he hadn’t noticed he was holding.

“Thanks,” he said, wondering if his voice betrayed the relief he felt. “I don’t like people noticing it, because, like, I don’t see anyone _else_ messing with stuff like this. But- I thought you maybe should hear about it.”

“Thank you,” Holt said. “I appreciate you informing me.” 

“Good. I’ll just head off now. We’ve both got work to do. Always, am I right?” Jake laughed awkwardly.

“Yes,” Holt said, but Jake didn’t feel like Holt was trying to get rid of him. More...giving him an out for a conversation that was clearly over. He appreciated it.

Amy looked up and smiled at him when he sat back down, and now Jake returned it. He was feeling good. 

And when his tangle clicked a little extra loudly at one point that afternoon, he didn’t bother checking to see if anyone noticed. It was fine either way.


End file.
